


a ghost in your eardrum

by viscrael



Category: No. 6 - All Media Types, No. 6 - Asano Atsuko
Genre: Angst, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Other, Post-Canon, Unrequited Love, i did it i wrote the angsty one-sided inukashion fic, inukashi-centric, nonbinary inukashi, this is rlly angsty honestly like it starts out ok and gets progressively worse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-16
Updated: 2015-06-16
Packaged: 2018-04-04 16:05:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4143987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Had it always been this difficult to stop crying? Had their heart always felt this heavy?</p>
            </blockquote>





	a ghost in your eardrum

**Author's Note:**

> u dont kno pain until "1 fic in inukashi/shion" so i was like. hello children time for death
> 
> anyway inukashion friendship is important also inu has a huge crush on shion and no1 can convince me otherwise
> 
> song of the day: when you sleep by mary lambert

Despite the fact that Inukashi venomously denied needing help in any way, Karan was still kind enough to offer them a place to stay if they needed it. They said they didn’t—they’d lived and got by okay on their own before, so they didn’t see the point in relying on pity hand outs. Still, that didn’t stop them from taking advantage of some of the perks of Karan’s kindness; her baking was, after all, the best they’d had (not that that said much, what with the conditions they grew up in).

One of the luxuries they’d never gotten was a washing machine. Growing up in West Block, they didn’t have too many extra clothes, but every once in a while they washed their things in the river they used to bathe the dogs. After the wall fell, Shion had insisted on getting them more clothes to wear, and along with that came the need to _wash_ them.

Shion was, as always, naively kind, and since they were neighbors, he said he could do Inukashi’s laundry. They denied him at first because that was stupid anyway, but he won that battle eventually.

He talked a lot about his brief time in West Block living with Nezumi, as if Inukashi didn’t know most of the information anyway, but they never felt the need to stop his chattering; Sundays had been cleaning days, when he was with Nezumi as well as when he was growing up, but because of the wreckage and rebuilding of the city, every day was cleaning day. Still, he kept the routine of doing laundry on Sundays “for nostalgia’s sake.”

Inukashi acted like they were particularly reluctant to hang around him, but truth be told, they enjoyed his company. That was probably why they were willing to sit on the washer while Shion folded his clothes.

“My mom said that you’re invited over for dinner tonight,” Shion said conversationally, pulling a shirt from the drier and holding it up to fold.

Inukashi shrugged nonchalantly. “Yeah, okay.”

“Does that mean you’ll come?”

“I don’t know yet, stupid. Don’t rush me!” They snapped. Shion laughed, a quiet sound that hadn’t been completely genuine in a long time.

“I’ll tell her you’re thinking it over,” he said with a smile, gentle as always.

“Whatever.”

When they looked up, Shion was staring at them.

They scowled, feeling self-conscious. “What?”

“That’s the first I’ve seen you with your hair up,” he explained. Inukashi felt their face heating up, immediately reaching to pull their hair down; they’d put it up in a ponytail to get it out of their face without thinking about the action.

“No, don’t take it down!” Shion rushed to say, stopping them. “I just hadn’t ever seen it like that before, that’s all. I think it looks good.”

Inukashi stared at him. “Don’t just _say_ stuff like that!”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“You’re so stupid…”

He laughed. “You tell me that a lot.”

“Only because it’s true.” They jumped off the washer, waiting impatiently for Shion to finish what he was doing. He lifted the basket of clothes up to rest on his hip before closing the drier door with his other one. They made their way back upstairs to the main entrance of the bakery in near silence, Inukashi still red. If Karan noticed, she said nothing.

As usual, they ended up eating dinner with the two despite their faux-reluctance to. Knowing they weren’t going to starve was information they weren’t used to yet, and it felt weird being able to say something like “I’m going to be having dinner with you” when six months ago, it wasn’t certain they were going to get a next meal at all.

But still, they gave into the invitation nearly every time. Karan’s food was the best they’d had, and she even gave them scraps to take to their dogs some days. When the dogs were around, she always crouched down and scratched behind their ears while saying something like, “Have you been having fun with your owner today?” Surprisingly, even the older dogs took to her almost immediately. It reminded them too much of Shion. They definitely saw where he got it.

At dinner, Inukashi stayed quiet while Shion and Karan held conversation, mostly about how the rebuilding was going, how the shop was doing, whatever it was mothers and sons talked about. Inukashi had pretty much clung to Shion’s side since the wall fell, but that didn’t mean they were comfortable in situations like that. Sometimes, Shion tried to pull them into the topic, and some days, it worked, well enough to the point where they forget completely about being alone and family-less outside of their dogs and Shionn. It was nice to feel included, especially in their little fantasy of a perfect, picket-fence happy family. Shion and Karan weren’t anything close to that, but somehow the two of them managed to give off the illusion anyway. Despite how much pain they’d endured, they were undeniably _happy._

Inukashi wasn’t sure they could say the same.

 

\--

 

Shion had thrown himself completely into rebuilding the city.

For the past six months, he’d not done much else; at the very beginning, he would work into the night, and the only time he would sleep was when Inukashi made him. He was so immersed in his work that he didn’t seem to care about anything else. It took a while, but Inukashi could get him to snap out of it. Once he realized the state he was putting himself in was hurting the people who cared about him, he stopped being so selfish. He still worked harder than anyone Inukashi knew, but he wasn’t over-doing it—most of the time.

Inukashi had Shionn to think about, so they couldn’t spend too much of their time helping around. On days were Shion needed them to pull him out of his stupor, Karan would watch over Little Shionn, treating him like her son, and Inukashi was thankful. She offered to babysit a lot, but they only took her up on the offer if they really needed it—which mostly meant days when Shion wasn’t sleeping again. He seemed to be having a lot of trouble with that.

 

\--

 

“I’m fine, Inukashi,” Shion always said, smile forced and eyes heavy. He had bags under his eyes from lack of sleep and yawned as he spoke. “You don’t have to worry so much about me.”

“Bullshit I don’t,” they said, but they understood it, sort of. They got nightmares too. They hadn’t even been in the worst of the Correctional Facility, but even the little they did see was enough to make them wish they didn’t have to sleep some nights. They could only imagine how bad Shion’s had been.

Some nights he woke up screaming. They didn’t live together, but at the beginning, when he was still getting back up on his feet, Inukashi was at his place so often they might as well have. They fell asleep together on accident sometimes while Karan babysat. Inukashi fell asleep first, hanging around watching Shion work and inevitably getting bored. When they woke up again, it was because the white haired boy couldn’t stop crying.

West Block made it so that Inukashi wasn’t a stranger to crying and screaming in the middle of the night, but watching Shion in such a state did something to them that they didn’t want to admit. They cared about him. A lot. A lot more than they wanted to, and it hurt to see him hurting, it hurt to know he was hurting and probably ever wouldn’t _stop_ hurting.

He still believed Nezumi was coming back. He still believed everything would be okay.

That was a comfort to Inukashi. They didn’t believe it themself, but knowing that Shion held such a hope was enough for them to keep on. Seeing him sobbing in his sleep and calling for Nezumi was painful, painful, _painful._ He deserved better than he got. He deserved so much better, and he got jack shit.

Inukashi knew life wasn’t fair. That didn’t stop them from cursing it though.

 

\--

 

Shion was in love with Nezumi.

Inukashi knew this. They’d known this when Nezumi was still around. They’d sort of always known it, honestly, since the moment Nezumi took him in; Shion was the one thing Nezumi had wanted to protect. He had taken him in when he didn’t need to, when Shion would only be a burden, when it was _dragging him down._ He did it anyways. Inukashi had known the whole time. Nezumi loved Shion back.

It still hurt, though.

Shion talked a lot about Nezumi. Talked about him like he hadn’t left him there, talked about him like he was _still_ there. Talked about him so fondly, with so much love and longing in his voice that it hurt just to hear. Inukashi let him talk; they were good at listening, they’d found. Shion didn’t say it much, but every now and then he thanked them “for being there,” in his words.

It was enough for Inukashi, for the time being.

 

\--

 

“You care a lot about Shion,” Karan observed, wiping her hands on her apron.

“Wh-what? What makes you think that?”

She smiled, not unlike her son. “You’re always so helpful, and you take care of him even when he says he doesn’t need help. I try to be there for him, but it’s been…difficult, and I really appreciate you being there. Thank you, Inukashi.”

“…It’s…” They looked at their hands where they were rolling dough. “It’s no big deal. He…takes care of me more than I do him, I think. You don’t have to thank me.”

“He cares a lot about you too,” she mused. “You’re one of his best friends.”

“I’m sort of one of his _only_ friends right now,” they mumbled, scowling.

“That doesn’t make you less important.”

Karan was too nice for her own good, Inukashi thought.

 

\--

 

Inukashi didn’t mean to say it, hadn’t planned on saying it, but things happen, and the one time he did, it came out harsh, harsher than they intended, sounding like a curse word, spat on the ground between them, only widening the space there that felt like miles.

Shion didn’t say anything for a moment. He was shocked, if anything. “Inukashi…”

“Shut up! Just shut up!” They wiped their eyes angrily, turning on their heel so he wouldn’t see their face. They hadn’t cried in a long time, but it was painful, _so painful._

“I’m—I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized—“

“Forget I even said anything.” They weren’t going to let Shion get a word in. “It’s—I’m not—it’s not a big deal, just forget it.”

“It _is_ a big deal, obviously it’s affecting you—“

They whipped around. “Just _stop it!_ I’ve humiliated myself enough as it is!”

Had it always been this difficult to stop crying? Had their heart always felt this heavy?

Inukashi refused to look at Shion even as he approached, feeling like their was lead in their shoes, keeping them from turning around and leaving and avoiding this confrontation completely. They were useless to do anything as he got closer, eyes so _sad_ and _sympathetic_ and _aggravating,_ like he understood exactly what they were going through, like he got it, he was the only one that got it, he was the only one that was _there_ , they wanted to crawl in a hole and never come out.

“Fuck you, fuck you, _fuck you_ ,” they were saying, and when had Shion’s arms gotten around them, since when were they pressed against his chest? “ _Fuck you._ ”

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you, Shion, fuck you to hell—“ They couldn’t stop _crying_.

“I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

“It hurts so _bad_ —“

Shion’s arms tightened around them. “I’m so sorry, Inukashi, I’m so, so sorry. You deserve better. You deserve so much better.”

He held them while they cried; cried because it hurt, cried because they didn’t know what else to do, cried because they were in love with someone that didn’t love them back.

_Shion, why does this hurt so bad? Make it stop. Make this stop._ They wanted to ask him, wanted to tell him to help, make it go away, make them stop loving him. What came out of their mouth was rugged sobs.

“I’m so sorry, Inukashi.”

**Author's Note:**

> inukashi crying and being angsty *rubs hands together greedily*


End file.
